Motor vehicles are increasingly provided with convenience features to provide powered opening and closing of closure panels. Examples include rear hatches and lift gates of van and SUV type vehicles. Similarly, sliding doors of full size vans and mini-van type vehicles are now often provided with power actuators.
Numerous designs of presently available products are used to provide such closure panel actuation. Examples of such systems are described by the assignees commonly owned U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,516,567; 5,784,833; 5,782,038; 6,553,719 and 6,324,788, which are hereby incorporated by reference. Several of these patents describe devices incorporating an electric motor actuator which transmits driving torque through a flexible cable to a lead screw type actuator unit. Through controlled rotation of the electric motor, opening and closing of the closure panel is provided.
In addition to closure panels designed for allowing occupant ingress and egress for the vehicle, movable windows may also be power actuated. In addition to power window regulators which raise and lower door glass, flip-out vent windows, pick-up truck cab rear windows, or sail panel windows may also be provided with power actuators.
The rear tailgates of pickup truck type motor vehicles have generally not been provided with power actuators for opening and closing the tailgates. However, increases in the strength and features integrated into pickup truck tailgates have led to their becoming increasingly heavy. Also, in the effort to make opening and closing of pickup truck tailgates convenient for a broad range of motor vehicle users, there is increasing interest in providing power actuation for pickup truck tailgates.
The incorporation of power actuation for pickup truck tailgates and other motor vehicle closure panels should preferably be provided in a manner which enables convenient packaging of the actuator into the vehicle and further does not negatively affect manufacturability and servicing of the vehicle. It is further preferred to provide power actuation for existing designs of vehicles without requiring substantial reworking and redesign of the vehicle structure.